Design Informatics Research Seminar: Amélie Proulx

Porcelain, this material considered unchanging over time, is at the foundation of Amélie's research. Through representation of iconic signs and technological manipulations, her work evokes the cycle of transformation of this material and a perpetual slippage of meaning in the perception of natural phenomena.

Amélie starts with the premise that, before its firing, clay is a soft material that can be perpetually transformed if it stays wet. The process of firing renders this material stable and immutable for millennia. Her explorations with this medium have led her to develop different strategies for unsettling the inherent characteristics of ceramics and suggesting that this material could collapse again into a soft state. Her sculptures and installations are hence proposals of potential movements in this material that seems fixed and static over time. Using different materials and technologies, she activates ceramics to create sculptures and installations — often time-based with motion and sound — that release the dynamic potential of clay, even suggesting a transformation of the inorganic into something organic.

Amélie Proulx is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily with porcelain. She is interested in the possible shifts of meanings in language and in the perception of natural phenomena. She received a BFA from Concordia University in Montréal (2006) and an MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in Halifax (2010). Her artwork has been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Australia, France and Scotland. In 2013, she received the RBC Emerging Artist People’s Choice Award at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. She has participated in several residencies, notably at the European Ceramic Work Centre (The Netherlands, 2014) and the Guldargergaard International Ceramic Research Centre (Denmark, 2015). She teaches ceramics and visual arts at the Maison des métiers d’art de Québec and at Cégep Sainte-Foy. She is represented by Galerie 3 in Québec City.

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336, VAT Registration Number GB 5929507 00, and is acknowledged by the UK authorities as a "Recognised Body" which has been granted degree awarding powers.